Sep
25th
Tue
25th
2007
Hal, who’s empty but not dumb, theorizes privately that what passes for hip cynical transcendence of sentiment is really some kind of fear of being really human, since to be really human (at least as he conceptualizes it) is probably to be unavoidably sentimental and naive and goo-prone and generally pathetic, is to be in some basic interior way forever infantile, some sort of not-quite-right-looking infant dragging itself anaclitically around the map, with big wet eyes and froggy-soft skin, huge skull, gooey drool.
One of the really American things about Hal, probably, is the way he despises what it is he’s really lonely for: this hideous internal self, incontinent of sentiment and need, that pules and writhes just under the hip empty mask, anhedonia.
One of the really American things about Hal, probably, is the way he despises what it is he’s really lonely for: this hideous internal self, incontinent of sentiment and need, that pules and writhes just under the hip empty mask, anhedonia.
— ij
that section - and the critique of ironic/cynical/hip aloofness - really reminds me of the ben fold’s five song - battle of who could care less, which is maybe a bit too sentimentally angst-y and ummm, not so austerely rendered as the above.
that section - and the critique of ironic/cynical/hip aloofness - really reminds me of the ben fold’s five song - battle of who could care less, which is maybe a bit too sentimentally angst-y and ummm, not so austerely rendered as the above.
